Oh December

It's been a heck of a month. Let us begin with pictures of Ava's birthday. She's 10, and it's gone by in 5 seconds. It doesn't make sense.

There were way too many orchestra concerts this month. It was out of hand. THREE CONCERTS in the span of 2 weeks. TOO MANY. This first photo is how it actually is attending these things. You can't see your own child, you just have to trust that they're there.

But then you take pictures like this, partly for posterity, and partly so the children know you were actually in attendance.

Anders has been playing basketball lately. His team is named The Silly Gooses. 

Aani was being Santa one night.

Ava had lots of singing to do this month, at the Singing Sharks concert, and the school Christmas sing.

GrandPar's cancer really took a turn since November. The siblings all came for a visit one weekend, which was a blessed event for everyone. Par got to torch some creme brulee, and it was a great time together. After 6 weeks of not being able to eat or drink anything, he graduated from this life on Dec. 27th. We were able to say goodbye just a few hours before he passed, which was a privilege, and very special. We will miss him more than we can say.

Teenagers + Cousins.

I found Mr. Potato Head at the PT clinic and set him out. Our book keeper made him a Santa hat out of tissue paper and toilet paper, which made me very happy.

One of my jobs is to man the white board and come up with questions to make people interact. This was one of the better ones. 

Aani and Ava got creative on Christmas Eve.

Traditional nativity. The kids are growing up and are less enthused about the forced participation.

Throwback to 2011, I believe. This Christmas card will never be topped. Sorry to everyone who has ever tried. Even we stopped after this.

Christmas Day

Addie bought Anders a Ken doll and she was the only one that thought it was funny.

The girls got stickers for their water bottles in their stockings, and I swear they were more excited about those than anything else. Trends are so so weird. 

Yummy food. Dinner was especially delicious. Good job, me. 

Nils' plate

Nils and the kids made a graham cracker Saratoga Springs temple. It only took like 7 hours.

And now we have this sitting on our table, and the kitchen smells like frosting all the time; but it was a fun activity. :)

I feel like this year has whizzed by faster than ever. I'm assuming this is normal for the phase we're in, but it's crazy and we're just holding on, trying to not fall off the ride.

We're so sad about Nils' dad passing away, and the year ahead will be less bright because he's not around for it. Fortunately, he gave us a fantastic example to follow, so we have a lot to strive for. May 2020 be blessed, indeed.

November life be crazy!

I'm typing with a fat hand. We went ice skating today, i.e. "pay money to fall down" for Ava's birthday, and everything hurts. 

So...November. It's been a little wild. We've had a car accident, a surgery, axe throwing, Jim Gaffigan, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Frozen 2, Thanksgiving, and snow this week. See? WILD.

This is the only picture I took on Halloween. 11:00 pm on Halloween night; what a great representation of this weird holiday.

Dia de los Muertos for Ava. She learned about her great grandma. 

Our neighbors got some tickets to a private Jim Gaffigan show and invited us. I laughed so much. I didn't think I would laugh as much as I did, but it had been a nutty week and I guess I needed a release. His Hot Pocket bit had me snort-laughing, and I've heard it 1000 times. I don't even know.

Anders rear ended a truck, and we only have liability on this car. He called me from the scene of the accident while I was sitting in the dentist chair getting a crown. It's been a whole thing. The car is getting fixed and will be 1/2 black since we aren't paying for it to be painted. Anders wasn't hurt, which we are very thankful for.

Nils had his deviated septum repaired, and I think we'd both agree that it has been a much longer recovery than anyone told us. It's been over three weeks and he's still having some discomfort. His septum was super, duper deviated, which has resulted in a more difficult surgery and recovery. He's fine, but has some yucky and uncomfortable things to deal with.

We went axe throwing with friends Ben and Mandy. It's fun AND satisfying to sink an axe! Nils and Ben had a grand old time. They went a little crazy and worked out some stress.

Oh wait, is that a bullseye? Yes, yes it is. 

Went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert with Nils' parents. The first hour and a half was kind of boring, and Nils and his dad did this:

Then they started blowing stuff up and playing heavy metal and it got fun.

 It was a cool show, with lots and lots of talented people. 

Speaking of talented people, Anders and I are supposed to play a piano duet for the Christmas program in Sacrament meeting. This is how he was practicing with me. It's going great. 

The girls have been obsessing about Frozen 2, and went to a showing on opening night. Addie and her friends arranged to all sit together. They were weirdly excited about it and loved the movie.

SNOW

Thanksgiving was loud, fun, and had so many desserts. 

Ava turns 10 tomorrow! Crazy. As I mentioned, we took her and some friends ice skating. Everyone had a great time, and Ava was a happy camper. I fell the most. Friggin' toe pick.

Life be crazy, y'all.

October '19

Temperatures have dropped into the TEENS this week. Why oh why? I blame Obama and Trump. 

Anders and his friends have an Instagram account called the QT's. It's a tongue and cheek account about how cute they are, and even though I think Instagram is the devil, I follow the QT's and think they're pretty funny. And, Anders' friends are all pretty great and I'm thankful he has them in his life.  

I was pressured into doing this, and it wasn't that funny for me or Cade's mom, I think we mostly just felt weird about it. Teenagers.

Anders' Priest quorum + the bishop rode 50 miles from the Payson temple, to both Provo temples, to the Mt. Timpanogos temple and back home on a Saturday. They did baptisms at the Payson temple. Anders even passed by his cousins at an intersection in Orem, and another one of the boys saw his missionary cousin outside the MTC. It was a cool experience, and everyone's butts were super sore.

Home at last

YW In Excellence- Aani displayed her drawings

Addie displayed her drawings and viola

Nils and I went to dinner one night, and my food had a tree stuck in it. I dunno. But I LOVE SWEET POTATO FRIES. They're my current most favorite food.

We had a delightful trip to Moab over Fall Break. I really like Moab. A lot. We don't camp or bike because those things are complicated; we don't even wear Patagonia clothing, and still manage to love it. We stayed in a hotel, hiked, and bummed around town.

We hiked to the Corona Arch, which is way cool! It's not in a national park, it's just BLM land, so it's much less crowded than Arches and other popular attractions. The hike was really quite fun and scenic the whole way, and the arch is ginormous.

 Yoga in the field of cairnes.

Hold to the rod, children

We were probably a 1/4 of a mile away from it at this point- you can see the people underneath the arch for perspective on how big it is.

Burgers at Milt's with the rest of the world- we waited for an hour. 

Sisters- they were really doing this, but as soon as I got my camera out they stopped, so I had them reenact their cuteness.

Ward Halloween party. Who's the bigger nerd? The one dressed up as a nerd, or the one who 3D printed his own storm trooper costume? It's a real riddle.

The Priest quorum all gave talks on Sunday. Not pictured is Gibson, who was at the pulpit giving his talk. Pictured are Anders, Hyrum and Andrew. Also, Anders got a perm.

Whilst in Moab, we got some fun family pictures. This was near the trailhead of the Corona Arch- we hiked by it and thought it would be perfect. Aside from being crazy windy, we managed to get some pretty good pics. We were doing stupid, cheesy poses first, so that made the kids laugh a lot. It worked out!

'Tis been a good month!